Color correction devices for color images generally provide a mechanism through which color characteristics may be adjusted. The image to be corrected and sometimes a histogram or other representation of the distribution of color in the image typically are displayed to a user. Histograms generally are provided for each component of component video data. Color correction devices typically show the input image prior to correction and its color distribution histogram. After adjustments are made to the color, an output image is generated. A histogram also may be generated for and displayed with the displayed output image.
A histogram is typically a scaled presentation, which shows in a relative manner the color proportions for the image. If one color is found in the image to a more significant degree than the other colors, the histogram will reflect this and a large spike will occur at the dominant color. The scaling will de-emphasize the presence of the other colors in the image. For example, if an image is cropped with a black border at the top and bottom of the image (the xe2x80x9cletter-boxxe2x80x9d effect), the histogram will show a large spike for the color black and de-emphasize the portion of the graph associated with the colors in the actual image. This effect makes the histogram difficult to read and comprehend. This is, of course, the opposite of our intent. It is thus desirable to provide for a method and system for generating a color histogram of an image that is easy to read and comprehend, even when the image is dominated by only a few colors.
Histograms are displayed in a histogram window according to the present invention such that a spike in the histogram that is significantly larger than the other histogram values is not used as the scaling factor for displaying the histogram. Rather, a histogram value other than the largest histogram value is used to scale the histogram in the histogram window. Consequently other peaks in the histogram are emphasized in the display and the largest peak does not dwarf the other peaks due to the scaling used to fully represent the largest peak.